Reader Comments (89)

I don't watch BBC (except for rugby internationals), so I don't know whether Harrabin's contributions might be considered as PPBs on behalf of the Green Party - but perhaps someone should consider whether there should be a challenge to his proselytising made not to the spineless BBC complaints, but rather more publicly to the Electoral Commission.

I've had comments removed in the past and realised that Bish had good reason to do so - when I lost it with a previous house troll from Truro. But then, I was in good company. As it seems I was today, if you got removed as well, Steve. In my case, perhaps it was the substitution of the word pygmies for physics in ATTP..... Seemed appropriate to me, both figuratively - looking at the cartoon - and metaphorically - considering the three people being caricatured.

Does anyone perceive a gentle distancing of some established climate scientists from the more fervent climate warriors? I wonder if there's a sense that they're realising that the activists' attempts at purdah is really quite a nasty attack on academic freedom?

antman, yes! But they have to tread very carefully, because they know, better than most, how vicious and spiteful, the true believers can be, especially towards those who they perceive have lost their faith.

Mike J, I don't believe humans can stabilise the climate either, but they are recommending pragmatic sensible action some of which we should do if there were no global warming scare. By taking pragmatic action we can continue to improve the lot of human beings and eventually the penny will drop that it's barmy to assume we can control the climate. That's going to happen anyway, in fact given Richard Betts' recent musings I'm convinced the penny has dropped with him, as it did with Judith Curry, and from what I can tell Richard Muller and even Ralph Cicerone who don't believe that there will be catastrophes. The latter wouldn't be drawn on it in a BBC interview a few years ago.

If you, like me, are in your dotage, you will remember that coal was going to run out before the end of the 20th century(which would have seemed to be a catastrophe at that time because coal was the only viable source of energy), or more recently that mobile phones could fry your brains.

It's the adult version of pulling the blankets (remember them?) over your head and telling each other ghost stories, then hearing a creek on the stairs and believing the ghost is manifesting itself. More of us than I suspected seem to take it into adulthood.

antman. I have noticed that there has been a more moderate approach by some climate scientists. I've known - not personally of course - Richard Betts a number of years and only recently has he said he is uncertain about the catastrophes that will occur if the world warms, and now he's quoted as saying the climate models can't foretell the future state of the climate because it's too complicated.

What Richard, for whom I have a great deal of admiration, and others don't seem to have grasped is that warming isn't the half of it. It will be interacting at leas two other chaotic systems, society and technology. Who could have forecast in 1915 what the world will look like in terms of technology and society in 2015 and come remotely close. What the climate scientists have been doing is what I termed "static analysis" they are imagining the catastrophes falling on society and technology as it is now. In other words they're are assuming that only one variable in their equation will change and the others will be static. I don't believe that the seas will rise by 120 meters, or 5 meters for that matter, but if they did they would be over millennia and centuries respectively. Meanwhile we have people telling us we should stop our progress in order to tackle climate change, when, should it not be mythical, our best chances of tackling it lie in accelerating our progress and at the same time tackling "today" issues and real catastrophes.

Dotage, geronimo! How dare you!Er, what was I saying? Yes, there are several things that we ought to be doing regardless of the whole climate change scare,and if there were no climate change scare we would probably be doing them. The trouble is that the debate has become so polarised and politicised that nobody dare make a move towards a logical way forward.The moneymakers like Grantham have acquired themselves a cash cow and either (a) don't believe in global warming (at least as described by the extremists) or (b) will have made their pile and will probably in any event be dead by the time anything serious is likely to happen — which is probably true of most of us. (So why are we doing this?)The politicians are caught in the headlights. The vast majority of the populace don't give a stuff but the activists can create a whole lot of fuss (and in some cases so can the family).The scientists, even the more honourable ones, have got seats on a gravy train and see no reason why they should be the first to get off.The eco-nuts have a genuine though, in my view misguided, idea of what is likely to happen to the planet in the next couple of hundred years apparently based on the flimsiest of evidence but are dangerous because they have greater faith in their cause than the vast majority of people who claim to believe in God seem to have in theirs. Which is odd when you think about it.

Richard Betts a number of years and only recently has he said he is uncertain about the catastrophes that will occur if the world warms, and now he's quoted as saying the climate models can't foretell the future state of the climate because it's too complicated.

Apr 18, 2015 at 1:25 PM | Registered Commentergeronimo

The Met Office is putting distance between itself and its former stance...

Computer models are the only reliable way to predict changes in climate. Their reliability is tested by seeing if they are able to reproduce the past climate, which gives scientists confidence that they can also predict the future.Met Office 2009

The evidence is clear – in the long term, global temperatures are rising Some commentators have suggested that global warming has stopped. This is not the case. The evidence is clear – in the long term, global temperatures are rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise.Met Office 2008

Somewhat off-topic but I just read a "science" article from the BBC...http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32348291...and was astonished by what can only be termed as 'propaganda' in the very first line, which says "Although Arctic sea ice set a record this year for its lowest ever winter extent...".

Why 'propaganda'? Well, go and look at this plot and judge for yourself...http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic...or download the.png and zoom in to around 11th March see just how much of a 'record' this year really was...http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi_ice_area.png

Maybe it was 'technically' correct, though I cannot see how 2015 is lower than 2007, but the trends are so different as to make the BBC's statement a classic example of being "economical with the truth"... and they wonder why we don't trust them?

Martin A. They're not the only ones, I think they're retreating to prepared positions, you would if you'd made predictions for 20 years and none of them had come to fruition, even the sturdiest of us would begin to have doubts over that length of time. The observed sensitivities are in the 1C range, and the temperatures have plateaued. As Dame Slingo herself said they're not "out of the woods yet". A singularly poignant statement from someone whose grim visage has been seen all over government forecasting doom for all who don't bow their knee to their prognostications. I think that they have a few years left, but the clock is running down to the time when the politicos will wake up to what they've done. As I've said before if I were them I retire to prepared positions until I came to one which enabled me to resile from my prognostications of mild statements of possible bad weather. That way I'd not lose face having to admit I had been 100% wrong and partly responsible for the death, impoverishment and unemployment of the millions of people affected by the decarbonisation policies which had resulted from my reckless forecasts of near term catastrophe. Of course the added bonus might be that the politicians wouldn't remember I'd once taken this tack and would punish me.

As an aside, and for Richard Betts we have wasted £bns on climate science research which could have been poured into engineering research for cold fusion reactors. If they were as sure as the said they were in 1990 - 2013 there was no purpose in finding out anything else about the climate and by now we'd have probably been near to a nuclear solution that could decarbonise energy production and only be a minuscule less knowledgeable about the planet's climate than we are now, because for sure we don't seem to have made much progress since 1990.

These 'useful idiots' of the catastrophic climate change movement don't seem to realise they are slaughtering the cash cow. Coal is crucial to the globalist's ambitions for raising revenue from parasitic Carbon Taxes on the developed world's use of coal. Former UNFCCC chief Yves de Boer tries to halt the carnage as the Guardian's idiotic divestment campaign poses an existential threat to the whole programme.

geronimo, I had a flash of how Paris is going to be. These guys, the alarmists, are this close to the only last hope they have and this is their level of preparation. They don't have an answer to the question they've had the longest time to prepare, one that has plagued the UNFCCC from the very first day: what are you going to about the poor in countries which did not contribute to fossil fuel emissions, who now seek to look up?" This is their plan, the ATTP gambit: they just plan to say 'How dare you imply I don't have their interest at heart'. This is it - they've blinked.

The last time, the COP at Copenhagen came after the high watermark of climate alarmism, post AR4, 2007. Sure there was Climategate, but it came late. The momentum riding in was impressive, and the plan clearly was to wildly ride in and mug rational thinking in some conference hallway and emerge victorious. The plan was a coup and so Copenhagen was the real wildcard. It was not clear how high the wave would crest. This time, the US skeptics lost Keystone XL, which puts them on the offensive. China and India have made their moves already. Copenhagen did not have to contend with the pause, a tarnished IPCC, and Greenpeace. The central moral force of authority has been hollowed out. To what precisely will the alarmists point to and say, because of this we need to have a treaty? I don't see anything. What answer will they give BRICS and the African nations about access to fossil fuel? If Tobis and ATTP are any clue, the have no answer. Damp squib at best is where we're headed.

Dave Salt (4:17 PM) -At the cost of another off-topic post, the BBC article appears to be referring to the NSIDC dataset, available at ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/ . I believe they use a 5-day average for determining min/max, and indeed 2015 had the smallest max in the record. JAXA has lower extent values than NSIDC, but agrees that the lowest max is in 2015. I agree with you that the NERSC chart you linked shows 2007 lower. Different algorithm, different results.

So it is deception : If there are different authorities and they all said the record had been broken that would be one thing. But it's just the same at "2015 was the warmest year ever claim" where they failed to point out that some satellite records disagree.- If we skeptics made such a bold claim if 2 data sets showed a cooling trend . The medias Eco-warrior reporters would be quickly calling "foul"

Stewgreen: the records do show that, when the cooling does occur, it is drastic, and indisputable. My own suspicions are that we will know within 3 years which way the temperature trend is going. Hopefully, it will continue its gentle slope upwards; however, I fear that it might be a sudden drop, prior to a not-quite-as-gentle slope downwards.

Should that happen, almost all public support for anti-fracking, anti-oil and anti-CO2 will vanish, as people are hit by the shock of reality.

Maybe it is time to briefly take stock.What have us evil sceptics actually achieved?Well, the "Science" must now be considered a complete train wreck. Even before Climategate, the efforts of Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, the Bish and a host of other heroes had made the "Science" look exceedingly dodgy or flat wrong. We still don't know what drives the climate, perhaps we never will, but any fool can see that whatever it is, however the climate might "Change" in future, it has got precious little to do with the strange "Consensus" beliefs. A constant stream of new alarmist papers appear - and are promptly eviscerated (withness the farcical recent "rabbits" paper.)In a sense, we can claim only a little credit for the "train wreck". With their arrogance and hubris and their refusal to sort out even the Lewandowskis and Gleicks, the Thermageddonists have brought this upon themselves.Note, however, that although completely discredited, there seems to be no paper, no matter how obviously and laughably wrong, that won't be trotted out again - the Zombie Science phenomenon.But, unfortunately, there seems to be absolutely no let-up (in fact the reverse) in all the eye-wateringly expensive pseudo "solutions" to all the non-existent problems. OK, the odd wind farm is put on hold, several Solar companies have crashed, subsidy levels have been reduced a trifle, but ruinable energy is very much alive and well.We have an election in the UK in less than three weeks, all the major parties, in fact every party except UKIP, has (a) Agreed not to talk much about the climate and (b) Put in their manifesto so called 'energy policies' that a reasonably well informed teenager ought to be able to debunk. Even UKIP has said precious little about climate and energy, banging on instead with some rather weak clamour about immigration. And UKIP will be exceedingly lucky to get half a dozen seats.The BigMoney and BigGreen boys are still making loads of money on the back of the carbon trading and ruinables scams, the bureaucrats and greenies are looking forward to Xmas shopping in Paris, and the journos, with few exceptions are still happy to unquestioningly publicise the latest exploits of the anti-fracking brigade.A recent trip to visit relatives in New Zealand with side excursions to Samoa and South Korea confirmed that the United Nations parasites and the DeepGreens are absolutely everywhere and as vocal as ever.Meanwhile, an excellent summary of the financing of DeepGreen has recently been published, essential reading:-http://ecofascism.com/review38.htmlSo, to summarise, although we have had notable successes, talk of 'winning' seems absurdly overstated. Just because, by any sensible reckoning, the "Scientific Consensus" has been knocked out of the ring (mainly because the Climate has refused to co-operate), it doesn't mean there is much to suggest that we are even at the end of the beginning. And it was never really about science, anyway.There is an old Russian joke contrasting the world view of the pessimist and the optimist.The pessimist, so it goes, is the man who believes things will get worse.The optimist, on the other hand, thinks things can't get any worse.On this scale, I have to confess my pessimism. I have no doubt that, just as historians now are producing yet more shelf-yards of books trying to understand what madness led to the Great War, in a hundred years time, their descendants will be studying the cAGW lunacy of the last 30 years.It is difficult to see now what will finally bring it all to an end. I'm sure the politicos and Journos would be still papering over the cracks if global temperatures plunged and / or blackouts become frequent. What does seem likely is that eventually the bloated rotting corpse of the EU will collapse, just as the USSR did. But the damage done to the Developed World, let alone to the Third World poor, is likely incalculable.

Martin Brumby, there will be a backlash when people realise you can't maintain the economy on the back of organic farming and environmental NGOs. To speed-up this realisation a new political force will emerge, essentially anti green-extremism and pro wealth creation, rather like the current Chinese govt, but this will take time, none of the existing parties are anywhere near what is needed.

Excellent. Yes the big money is behind the greens. That's easy to understand because they're winning

Profits of doom

The European Commission has paid environmental campaigners directly to carry out its political agenda. In 1999, at a cost of about EUR500,000, it set up a new group, the European Environmental Bureau, while also paying both the Friends of the Earth and the WWF EUR250,000 each to set up offices in Brussels. On another occasion, the Climate Action Network was given EUR140,000 for "capacity building". In fact, the Commission funnels about EUR3 million (£2.48 million) a year to environmental groups that it favours.

But that's a drop of oil in the Gulf of Mexico compared with the amounts that private foundations in the US are estimated to provide each year to environmental causes. The sums involved run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. One green organisation - the Tides Foundation - had net assets of $142,007,356 in 2006. Local green groups may rely on "flapjack and organic-soap fundraising mornings" - but real campaigns are funded by a very different and largely invisible mix.

Thanks, HaroldW... I value your comments and agree that there's some basis for their statement. However, given the variations in the datasets and, more especially, the short period it could be called 'the lowest', it's clearly a very debatable statement.

I think Jonathan Amos is one of the better BBC reporters (he covers the space industry, which is my work domain) but was rather disappointed he had to 'top-and-tail' what is otherwise a good article with the usual 'propaganda'.

Well, to return to the cartoon, since gathered biofuel, wood, and that other stuff, costs less than fossil coal, oil, propane, etc, who is going to cover the difference in perpetuity. Myriad attempts to improve stoves to hold down indoor air pollution have failed on the cost of fuel issue. What is your majic wand.

Eli Rabett, "who is going to cover the difference in perpetuity". The ideal is that eventually everyone stops living in subsistance circumstances and can afford whatever energy the rest of us use. And yes, eventually it will be something other than fossil fuels. It might be nostalgic to have a real fire at home but you can't develop a sophisticated society on it.

"Well, to return to the cartoon, since gathered biofuel, wood, and that other stuff, costs less than fossil coal, oil, propane, etc, who is going to cover the difference in perpetuity. Myriad attempts to improve stoves to hold down indoor air pollution have failed on the cost of fuel issue. What is your majic wand."

It's called "The Industrial Revolution". The locals need to start setting up their own workshops and factories to manufacture the wealth they need. On human power alone they need a lot of people to manufacture goods which, even at minimal wages, makes them expensive. Nobody local can afford them, so nobody buys them, so nobody produces them, so nobody is employed to produce them. With fossil fuels they can make far more goods with fewer people, giving a higher ratio of goods per person. Hence wages rise or, equivalently, prices fall, and people's fossil-enhanced ability to produce the goods society needs gives them the earning power to buy the same more abundant goods from society - including fossil fuels for cooking.

To answer the question "who is going to cover the difference in perpetuity", the answer always has to be "the people who benefit from it" - which is to say, the Africans. You obtain benefits from society only by contributing a comparable benefit to the rest of society, in mutually beneficial voluntary exchange. You get what you want by giving other people what they want. Which in turn motivates them to spend their time, effort, and inventiveness working to give you what you want. Positive feedback expands the cycle exponentially. And technology and cheap energy enable us to do so.

Our own society has advanced to the point where people can no longer see the machinery that delivers their lifestyle, and many do indeed seem to think it all works by means of some sort of magic wand. They often seem to think it's the government that waves it.

And wouldn't it be nicer if we could dispose of all that horrible industry and markets, with its profits and pollution and sweat shop factories, and just have the government wave its wand to magic the wealth and resources out of the hands of the rich producers and into the hands of the poor? I'm sure such people don't really intend to pull the ladder up after themselves. But it's really hard to explain to people with that mindset that the world doesn't really work by magic, and magic doesn't really work.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Not everyone will be rich. But almost everyone will have the capability to earn the basics of a comfortable life.

"Rich" is for when people have rare skills able to benefit many thousands of their fellows. The riches motivate them to acquire those skills, and to use them in the service of society. And later, the sight of those riches motivates others to learn how to do the same thing better and cheaper, to undercut the originator and get in on the act. Thus progress is made.

But no, not everybody will be rich, because not everybody is able and willing to do that sort of work for their fellow humans (or bunnies).

No magic wand needed Eli, just trade. Those poor countries that have embraced business rather than extremism have pulled or are pulling themselves out of poverty. Most countries that still have poverty are not short of income streams, they just can't get beyond their own internal troubles. The BRIC countries are a great example of how it can work. Climate has not been the limiting factor in their meteoric improvements. Even the poorest countries have a resource that goes hand in hand with their poverty - cheap labour. To use it, they have to form larger communities and use the cheapest reliable energy available (usually coal). It's how our ancestors did it.

Take the Beckhams, good football players and Xfactor chicks come in droves. Unless their rare skill is to have happenedto be at the proper place at the proper time

Take George Soros, the billionaire, who is at the outlier far end of a million currency traders.If George wouldnt have existed, some other gambler would have taken the outliers gamblers position.

Take the families of say the Tetrapack invention or some European bank or other big company: in those families you have one granddaddy who worked himself to smithereens and/or had a lot of luck and was sufficient scrupless, and a whole panoply of billionaire family members who cannot make water to boil. But are billionaires nevertheless.

Rich is also relative. I am by no means wealthy but should lords and ladies from the past be magically transported to my home they'd be awed by my prosperity. I can easily afford food and possessions well beyond their imagination. Although I have not a single human servant, my electrical ones do the job of many, many serfs and all for an affordable (to me) wage. Even the White Dees of this country have homes that would shame a moderately wealthy merchant of the past. Trade and energy have made those changes possible.

VenusNotWarmerDueToCO2. The childen of the talented or even the talented themselves often lose much of the success they acquire unless they are at least careful (which is a skill). Sure, luck plays a part but being at the right place at the right time is often due to skill itself. The Beckhams are skilled at using their saleability or at least employing the right people to promote them. I hate people like Tracy Emin and Vivienne Westwood but I recognise that while artistically they are totally talentless, they are brilliant at selling tat to pretentious idiots. Of course, there are always exceptions but most people who get rich do so because they've got something that others don't... even if it's a criminal mind.

"The childen of the talented or even the talented themselves often lose much of the success they acquire unless they are at least careful (which is a skill) "

It is not much of a skill as rather having more protection/insurance. A lot of legislation for example is geared up at protecting the rich which is fundamentally unjust.

People stare at whats unlike them and think it must be divine. The azteks thought that of sun blights or something, the warmish think that of Brian Cox, maybe. There is nothing divine. A rich fart is a poor fart who got lucky. Luck isnt divine either. George Soros , for example might have sold his pounds options a month earlier, and George Soros2 kept them a while longer instead. We would all be listening to George Soros2 now.Now what, exactly , made George Soros1 keep his position? It might have been the fact he had a problem with his car and forgot to sell which he wanted to do.

It's well recognised that the stock market is gambling but even that can be played better or worse with skill. It's not just luck to know when a company is on the verge of a break through or what shares are stable and which are more risky but might give a meteoric financial boost. Maybe the skill is just in persuading others to let you gamble with their money. Some charm with their appearance but it takes skill and hardwork to perfect that.

Saatchi has a hugely valluable art collection, not because he's lucky but because he has the skill to persuade people that complete tat is worth something. Most writers have strings of rejections before they get their big break and most important of all, they persevered and finished at least one book rather than just said 'I could write a better novel than [insert mediocre writer]'. Most actors and sports people who make it big have been in those businesses since they were children. The kid destined for greatness is the one still kicking the ball long after the others have gone in to play football on their computer. The X factor people are not there because of their own luck but because of Cowell's skill. Their durability once they're on their own is through their own abilities and good choices. For every winner there are many who never turned up for the audition. The special skill is the guts to risk making an ass of yourself as much as a good singing voice. Some even go on to greatness because their skill is making a fool of themselves.

I have a friend who grumbles at how successful my sister and her husband are. I point out that they went out each day at six in the morning and returned at six each night to work for a few hours before bed. Personally I never wanted to be that 'lucky'.